The Small Things.

Living with a child who has Down syndrome has it's advantages. One of those is that we get to celebrate a lot more often. We celebrate EVERYTHING!!! See all those things that "typical" kids do and no one really notices, are super duper, make a cake, set off fireworks events in our house.

I'll tell you about  a few of them. When Em was teeny tiny, she had food therapy. The kid couldn't keep food in her mouth (should be my issue, maybe I'd be able to shed a few.. ) Her sweet little mouth would twist and turn and out it all would come. Her muscles we not strong enough to keep that yummy oatmeal in. After a few sessions she figured it out and little by little she ate more and more things. SUCCESS! And we celebrated, with cake because now she could eat it!!

Another huge one was stacking blocks. This was about a years worth of duck and cover moments for all involved. Em had a great arm! She would toss blocks over her head, across the room and behind her back. And she never let on which way she was going to let it fly. But never would she "put it on top". For over a year that was the most heard phrase in our house.   Just about the time when I was ready to toss in the blocks, I mean really you can get through life without stacking .. right? That's when she decided to start building up and up and up!! What a beautiful sight that was! There's probably a blog post about somewhere. So, what did we do?? You got it! CELEBRATE!!!

How about when your child put something in a bucket? Do you remember that day? Well, for kids 1-4 I can honestly say .. no way. I have no idea,  didn't they just always know how to do that?  But for Em, it was a monster of a celebration! I mean the day she let go of a toy and dropped it into the bucket was ENORMOUS!!  Em used to have this white knuckle death grip on everything. She would not ever, ever, ever drop a toy into a bucket. I think I cried on that day.

And just yesterday, we were driving home from school and she sneezed. You know that sneeze where pounds of "stuff" are hanging , suspended for those few precious seconds before they drop onto the top lip and inevitably that curious little tongue emerges to see what's going on. Yeah, that's what we were dealing with. I thought to pull over, but in traffic with no good place to stop I decided to just wing it. I mean how bad could she make it? Then it dropped... ugh .. no Em don't lick it!!!!  Suddenly I had a thought. Give her a wipe! So I managed to get a wipe from my bag and pass it back. "Go ahead Emmie, wipe your hands and nose"  As I wait with hope in my eyes, but expecting her to just eat the wipe like she usually does... I get a gift.  My dumpling wipes her hands and then cleans her sweet nose, like a pro! All signs of snot are gone, and an extra gift, she said , "Thank you"!

 Drove the rest of the way home with a stupid happy smile on my face!

It's those small things we bake the biggest cakes for.